Spaghetti legs!

Well I made it through Week 5 of Couch to 5K and I’m so excited to say I feel like I’m really making progress! Day 1 wasn’t horrible since I had done 5 minute runs several times before.

Day 2 was a little more challenging. I did the first 8 minute interval without stopping at all. There was a huge mental battle going on between stopping to walk and keeping on with the run. Fortunately, the running side won and I finished! Then the second 8 minute interval was a little more challenging. I made it most of the way through and that horrible hill was staring me in the face again about 4 minutes into it. I ran halfway up and couldn’t make the rest so I paused the workout for 30 seconds and made it up the hill. I restarted and finished strong.

For Day 3 I decided it was time to join the gym. The weather has been so wishy washy between rain and horrible heat/humidity that it felt right. I felt confident and finished the 20 minute run on the treadmill without any problems at all. I think the air conditioner and the treadmill made it a lot easier than running outside but that’s ok. I can slowly build up to the longer runs in the elements as time goes on.

I had every intention on starting Week 6 yesterday but that didn’t go as planned. See, when I joined the gym I didn’t realize that you get a free personal training session. I may have read that but thought I had to ask for it and certainly wasn’t going to do that. I got a call on Wednesday from the trainer wanting to set up the appointment so I thought “why not!?” I was set to meet the trainer yesterday at 6:15. I thought surely there would be a cardio warm-up and I could get my run in before the training session. I was WRONG!

The trainer made it pretty clear he’s not a fan of running so we didn’t do any type of cardio at all. It was all strength training. I haven’t done any type of strength exercises in a LONG time so it felt like my muscles were yelling at me! We did about 30 minutes worth of exercises and I literally felt like a big string of spaghetti when I left. I didn’t do my run at all and just went home. I’m still pretty sore today.

I agree with the advice that strength training is very important and have every intention of incorporating some of that into my workouts now that I have the gym membership. However, I will continue with my runs because honestly, that’s the only thing I have really stuck with for any extended period of time and I don’t have any intention of stopping now.

I’ll tell you about the yummy meal I made when I got home in a later post. =)

-Geneva